Consumer & audience targeting

Media planning tools

Reputation, PR monitoring and
evaluation

We would like to send you occasional updates about products & services, news and events from Kantar Media. To join the mailing list, please tick the checkbox.
We will never sell your data, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Further information on how your data is used, including our responsibilities and how you can unsubscribe can be found here.

Advertisers Spent $5.25 Billion on the Midterm Election, 17% More Than in 2016

Published on:
15 November 2018

Solution:
Advertising Monitoring & Evaluation

by Jason Lynch, AdWeek

Local cable doubled its revenue from the 2014 midterms and digital ads almost quadrupled

The dust hasn’t completely settled on the 2018 midterm elections yet, with a few races still in limbo. However, broadcast, cable and digital outlets are tallying their ad revenue haul from this year and, not surprisingly, it’s a record-breaker.

In the 2018 midterm elections, $5.25 billion was spent on advertising in local broadcast, local cable and digital, according to Kantar Media, which makes it the most lucrative midterms in history. The 2018 election spending was 78 percent higher than the 2014 midterms, which had a $2.95 billion haul, and even beat the 2016 presidential election spend—$4.47 billion, including $122 million in national buys—by 17 percent.

Digital ads, which ran most often on Facebook and Google, almost quadrupled from 2014, jumping from $250 million to $950 million. The 2016 election digital ad spend was $650 million.

The local broadcast and local cable spends were both greater than the 2016 election year totals.

Local broadcast political ad revenue, at $2.1 billion in 2014, increased to $2.85 billion in 2016 and $3.1 billion in 2018. Local cable, which brought in $600 million in 2014, doubled to $1.2 billion in 2018 and was at $850 million in 2016.

Democrats outspent Republicans in this year’s state and federal races by a 53 percent/46 percent margin. In the 2010 midterms, Republicans held a 54 percent/45 percent lead, as they campaigned heavily against the Affordable Care Act. Four years later, Republicans still led by a 51 percent/47 percent margin.

In other Kantar findings, ads supporting Democratic candidates referenced healthcare 1 million times, accounting for 49 percent of all Democrat ads overall and 59 percent of all Democratic ads for House races. Many of those Democratic ads claimed that Republican candidates were in favor of eliminating health insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and frequently tallied the number of residents in the district that would be impacted by such a change. In comparison, just 367,000 of Republican election ads mentioned healthcare. Instead, that party’s spots focused on tax reform, immigration and record levels of employment.

One out of every 10 Democratic spots carried an anti-President Trump message, while one of every 10 Republican ads mentioned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (for House races, that number jumped to one of every four).